EMPLOYEE

ENGAGEMENT
THE COMPLETE GUIDE

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Definition Of Employee Engagement

Employee engagement is the emotional commitment than an employee has towards

an organization. Many people often confuse engagement with employee happiness or

employee satisfaction, and although they are close, it is not necessarily the right

definition.

The definition is much more complex than that and requires a more complete view of

an employees life at work.

That commitment comes from how well an employees personal goals and values

align with the organizations goals and values.

When employees are engaged, they are not there for the money, they are there

because they care. They genuinely want to see the company succeed, and theyre
willing to use discretionary eort without being asked.

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How To Measure Engagement

Measuring engagement is the first step to improving it, and because of its importance,

its valuable to get as much information as you can.

The most common way of getting this kind of information is to use employee surveys.

These surveys are designed for the specific purpose of measuring engagement, using
statistics to determine the engagement levels of employees.

These surveys are designed for the specific purpose of measuring engagement, using
statistics to determine the engagement levels of employees.

Managers and consultants of the big-data age want a wide array of metrics in a good

way.

Not to mention the feedback loops between these kinds of surveys are too far and

between in order to be considered prominent.

Frequent employee surveys, or pulse surveys, are quickly becoming the

most eicient way of measuring engagement because of their frequency and
ability to get a picture of how the employee feels about their company.

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What is accurate is that both of these processes have made the written survey
obsolete, as all major survey vendors provide web-based tools, making it easier
for employees to answer questions and managers to aggregate and view data.

So the faster you can collect the data and view it, the better it is for your HR
department.

Why Should Companies Improve It?

There is no better reason to improve engagement than the fact that it will make your

company more successful.

The return on investment of having engaged employees could end up saving your

company hundreds of thousands, if not, millions of dollars a year.

The metrics being measured will allow companies to find those weak points and turn

them into strengths, while using data to reassure companies what theyre good at and
allow them to be even better.

Companies that take the time to evaluate their employees in order become an
employee-centric culture are the ones that tend to make those best places to
work lists.

When employees come first, success follows. Giving employees a voice, while
giving them the autonomy they require to be innovative, are a solid 1-2 punch
thatll help bring a department to prominence.

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Benefits Of Measuring Engagement

The benefits of engagement are hard to ignore. Engaged employees are more

productive, because they understand the why behind their company and can find
joy in what they do.

This also leads to more innovation and productivity and just as important, employees
becoming ambassadors for their companies.

When an employee becomes an ambassador, theyre more likely to excel and recruit
other motivated employees that will fit well within the culture of the company.

Engaged employees lead to more successful businesses. In the book Make More Money
by Making Your Employees Happy, it proves with case studies how engagement leads

to higher profits. Here is an excerpt from the book:

A Jackson Organization study shows that companies that eectively appreciate

employee value enjoy a return on equity & assets more than triple that experienced by

firms that dont. Fortunes 100 Best Companies to Work For stock prices rose an
average of 14% per year from 1998-2005, compared to 6% for the market overall.

Employee Engagement Metrics

There are ten components that go into measuring an engaged employee, all of which

are measured within Oicevibes engagement reports and surveys. These are the
makeup of what engages employees and, if improved, what can create a great

company culture.

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1. Recognition

Lack of recognition is the top reason that people leave their jobs. Companies

with engaged employees and a great company culture have significantly lower
voluntary turnover.

2. Feedback

Employees crave feedback that will help them excel at their job. Often,
managers are reluctant to give constructive feedback in the fear that they

might upset or disengage the employee.

3. Happiness

Its important to keep an eye on your employees happiness both in and out of

work. Happier employees are 12% more productive and are more passionate
about work.

4. Personal Growth

Employees want to grow in and outside of work. Humans are genuinely

motivated to have autonomy, mastery, and purpose, which are all part of

growing professionally, and as a person.

5. Satisfaction

Employees have to be satisfied with their environment and enjoy where they

work. Its also important to know if employees are currently satisfied with their
wage and benefits.

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6. Wellness

Healthy employees take fewer sick days and have more energy to perform well

at work. Eating and sleeping well, along with exercise, will give them the energy
to excel at work and be more productive.

7. Ambassadorship

This comes down to one question, would an employee be willing to recommend

their company as a place to work? Employee ambassadors lead to better

recruitment and strengthen the companys culture.

8. Relationship With Managers

Having a good relationship with management will allow employees to work

easier and happier. The old expression is people dont quit their job, they quit
their boss, so its beneficial to see how teams function.

9. Relationship With Colleagues

Feeling part of a team can have major eects on engagement and motivation.
Its important to optimize the frequency of communication between

employees.

10. Company Alignment

Its valuable to know how employees feel about the mission, core values, and

direction of the company. This helps with engagement and gives clear meaning
to why they are there.

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 Learn How
Learn How To
ToMeasure
Measure&&Improve
Improve
Employee Engagement
Employee Engagement

A 15-minute presentation on the importance of employee engagement,

A 15-minute presentation on the importance of employee engagement,
how to measure it and how you can easily improve it.
how to measure it and how you can easily improve it.

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Using An Employee Engagement Survey Software

Many initiatives fail because theyre viewed as one-time things instead of an ongoing

process.

Using an engagement platform is a great way to keep your initiatives running all year

long and can help maintain that cadence when things start to slip after an annual
survey or annual review.

It also provides a lot of flexibility with comparing data, and allowing managers to view
which departments need help.

More importantly, the ability to collect feedback from employees on how things can
be better.

Using Oicevibe, youll be able to collect actionable data throughout the year.
Managers continuously get anonymous feedback to make small, incremental
changes that boost employee morale.

Employee Engagement Best Practices

Many companies invest a lot of time and energy into improving employee satisfaction,

with very little results. Senior managers often wonder why their initial investment isnt
paying o.

The problem is that most of the time, its done only by senior
management with no involvement from front-line employees.

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When establishing an employee program, remember to include employees in the

process.

Just the act of including them in the process will make them more engaged because it

will make them feel like you genuinely value their opinion.

Things like employee pulse surveys, frequent feedback, and regular praise are all part

of an eective program.

In order to have a well-rounded engagement program, make sure at the very least, to

include these things:

1. Frequent And Specific Feedback

Employees want feedback in real time, and they want the feedback to be

specific. Instead of telling an employee they did something wrong, take the
time and teach them how to do it better

2. Frequent Praise

Because of the way dopamine works and is handled in the brain, its

recommended to give employees praise at least once a week.

Dont just say great job, be specific about what youre praising them for.

3. Frequent Surveys

In order to have an accurate picture of whats going on in your company, you

should be surveying your employees much more often than once a year.

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 4. A Measuring Mindset

Let data speak for you. Dont rely solely on your opinions, and have the type of

mindset that you can run small tests to see what is improved.

Instead of over-planning and over-committing, start small.

5. Annual Reviews

In addition to the frequent feedback sessions, a more formal annual review is a

great way to take a look back on the whole year and see what went well and
what could be improved.

Statistics On Employee Engagement

One benefit of engaged employees is that theyll be more likely to provide good
service to customers. This is whats known as the service-profit chain.

The service-profit chain is the link between service and profit.

Profits come from customer loyalty. Customer loyalty comes from customer

satisfaction. Customer satisfaction comes from employee satisfaction.

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Heres the diagram:

Employee Engagement Strategies

By far the best strategy to increase employee engagement is to get the mid-level
managers involved in creating change within their team. Research from Gallup finds

that managers account for 70% of the variance in engagement scores.

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This means that if you were going to focus on one area to improve, it would be with

your managers.

Specifically, you want to improve the relationship between managers and their direct

reports. Ideally, youll conduct frequent employee surveys to measure the satisfaction
on your team. But when monitoring the results of those surveys, its important to

focus specifically on a manager and their team.

Have open and honest discussions about the results and what could be improved.

Frequent discussions combined with frequent one-on-ones to chat informally about

how things could be improved is by far the best strategy to improve engagement.

Here are a few other strategies that you could try with your team.

Give employees autonomy over their work and let them pick some projects they
get to work on.

Have your team work on an ambitious project together. Everyone has the innate
need to be challenged and to try harder, so this will get them excited for work and

build a more collaborative team.

Give frequent recognition. Employees expect to be recognized for their work

frequently. A good cadence is at least once a week.

Oer flexible work arrangements. This shows respect, allows employees to have

work-life balance, and lets them adjust their schedules to be the most eicient.

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How To Improve Employee Engagement

There are many employee engagement ideas that you can do to keep your employees

engaged, and most of these initiatives are free.

These are only a few examples, but they have a long lasting eect on things like

happiness, retention, and even hiring.

Its important for a company to create an environment where people want to work

from day one, because top talent is attracted to that type of setting.

1. Treat Employees With Respect

Treat your employees the way youd want to be treated. Oer flex time, because life
gets in the way of work all the time and create an environment of trust and

transparency.

Research by Georgetown University found that flexibility is important to employees,

with 80% of employees saying they would be happier with more flexible work options.

Of those workers who already have flexibility at work, 90% said it eased the burden of

work-life balance.

A study conducted by Harvard University showed that enhancing trust and employee

commitment creates an environment that fosters happy, committed, productive team

members.

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2. Let Employees Be Themselves

There is a lot of psychology behind letting employees be themselves at work.

One of Zappos CEO Tony Hsiehs favorite interview questions is On a scale from 1-10,
how weird are you? to encourage employees to be unique, and to remind candidates

that they embrace people being weird.

Its called Authentic Self-expression. When people start to not behave like

themselves, they start to question themselves and they become disengaged.

3. Give Back

Your business should be providing value to the community or society as a whole. This
is a very easy way to get employees passionate about your company.

One study found that 81% of Millennials expect companies to make a public
commitment to good corporate citizenship and that they remain loyal customers of

companies that have built philanthropy into their business strategy.

Corporate philanthropy has also been found to boost employee retention rates.

3. Start With Why

This is about understanding your purpose. This is key for employees to be able to get

passionate. They need to be able to understand why theyre doing what theyre doing.

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Everyone should learn more about a concept called The Golden Circle, from Simon

Sinek, who talks about it in his famous TED talk about how leaders should be
communicating.

Key Takeaways
Employee engagement is the commitment that employees have towards their
organizations.

Improving the engagement level is easy, you just need to focus on the right things.

Empower your employees by including them, coaching them, and taking care of

them

When employees are engaged, theyll give customers an enhanced experience,

which will lead to higher profits.

Traditionally, companies have used annual surveys to measure engagement, but

the new way is to measure as frequently as possible.

Tools like Oicevibe can help you by surveying your employees each week and

collecting anonymous feedback.

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 Want To Improve Employee Motivation?
Take a look at Officevibe

Tips to engage your employees

Anonymous employee feedback

Real-time reporting

Watch our webinar and learn how to measure and improve employee engagement:

www.oicevibe.com/webinars

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